1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charging system of internet services in IP network, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for providing a measured rate system in an IP network, in which the charging system is operated by measuring a traffic type and traffic amount used by a customer in a router for allowing the customers in a public Internet network system.
2. Description of the Related Art
An Internet network consisting of an IP router has been developed to provide application services of a non-audio data service system free of charge. However, audio and video services (AOD/VOD Service), which are real time services, as well as super high speed Internet services have not been available until recently by various Internet Service Providers (ISP) and commercial networks.
Such services based on the IP router include application services such as Internet phones and video phones, which require real time process, and application services, such as Internet web browsing, file data transfer, image transfer, e-mail transfer, and video on demand (VOD) download, which do not require real time process.
The services such as Internet telephones and video telephones should satisfy very small packet loss and delay time conditions. On the other hand, the services such as Internet web browsing should ensure constant service rate and response time. In this respect, it is necessary to introduce a charging system differentiated depending on user""s desired quality of service.
However, the current Internet services have some problems in that most of the communication service fees are charged based on a fixed fee system and it is difficult to measure traffic due to various service types and charge the fee.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for providing a measured rate system in an IP network, that substantially obviate one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide to an apparatus and method for providing a measured rate system in an IP network, in which a charging system is provided by a measured rate system in accordance with various quality of services provided to customers in a public internet network system.
Another object of the present invention is to an apparatus and method for providing a measured rate system in an IP network, in which a charging system is provided in accordance with quality of services measured in a router.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims thereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, an apparatus for providing a measured rate system in an IP network according to the present invention includes; a traffic type divider for dividing traffic transmitted and received between a customer network or customer equipment and the IP network, in accordance with service types; a traffic measuring and statistical processing unit for measuring traffic use amount by traffic data divided from the traffic type divider and generating statistical data required for charging system; a tariff function unit for providing a tariff function which determines fee rate per unit band; a unit fee determining unit for determining unit fee in accordance with traffic types by applying the tariff function of the tariff function unit based on a charging policy of the measured rate system; and a final charging calculating unit for determining final use fee which will be charged to the customer, through data calculated by the traffic measuring and statistical processing unit, the tariff function unit, and the unit fee determining unit.